Single-Leg Squats are one of the core lifts I promote to my clients. I do it so much I spent the latest Wellness Insights Podcast discussing it all in-depth.

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:09] Hi and Welcome to Wellness Insights with Dr. Chalmers. I’m Dr. Chalmers. So this is a fun one for me this always starts lots and lots of arguments and people calling me all sorts of names and this is always fun, so.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:21] There are several exercises that I tell people that they probably shouldn’t do, and there are certain exercises I tell people they should never, ever do, especially long term. Three of them are some of the most popular exercises around.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:34] Bench press with a bar, Squat with a bar and Kettlebell swings. You should never, ever do. So here’s why.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:43] The natural range of motion for the shoulders and for those of you who are watching us, you can see this natural range of motion of the shoulder is here. So what is happening is, as you’re doing that motion, it’s arms up, elbows up by your side, hands for your elbows as your elbows come closer, as your hands come up like you’re doing a bench. Press your hands come closer together. A bench bar does not allow that to happen. So it puts a very interesting force vector in your shoulder that will damage it almost every single time as time goes along.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:18] So I tell people, don’t do bench with a bar do dumbbells I love dumbbell bench. Like it’s awesome. But what you’ll notice is that you’ll come down and your hands will be pretty straight. And then as you come up, your pinkies tend to roll in towards each other that’s because that’s the natural range of motion of the shoulder.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:35] Your dumbbells come out on the opposite sides of your chest, and then as you press up, they come together and their peaks come in and they almost clanging together. It’s just the natural movement that because that’s how your arms and body naturally are supposed to move. So yeah, I do that.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:49] Now. I like to do cable flies I’ll do, you know, four sets of 15 low for such a 15 minute enforced 215 high then I’ll go to my dumbbells and the reasons, because then I can do lighter dumbbells. still get the damage to the muscle still get the growth of the muscle while I take the pressure off my ligaments, tendons and joints, my elbows, wrists and shoulders.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:14] If you like to lift heavy, if you if you want to be, if your goal is to be the heaviest lifting guy in the gym, which is not my goal, then go ahead knock yourself out like that. That’s fine.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:24] Now, if you’re an Olympic lifting sport and you have to do bench press, then you’re going to have to train and bench press to do bench press. However, I would tell you to train a little bit here and there just for safety with dumbbells and that type of thing, to maintain different functional muscle groups.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:40] Squat with a bar when you put a bar on your back the first thing that happens is you compress your discs. So you’re putting a ton of pressure, a ton of force, a ton of degenerative, damaging force on the spine, the bones, the ligaments, the tendons, the discs, the nerves all that stuff gets gets super compressed, and that’s bad for it.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:01] Here’s the other thing. If that was it, I wouldn’t really say much like, Yeah, do some inversion, do some stretching, you’ll be fine. Here’s my actual problem with it, because you’re using both legs. If you have a weak right ankle and a weak left knee, you’ll never going to know.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:16] Because as you do that, the body will compensate and put all the force. It’s supposed to go to that weak right ankle throughout the rest of the body and that weak left knee, all that force goes somewhere else is also.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:26] So as we build up the muscle around that weak joint, the force going into that weak joint gets greater so we have a higher chance of damaging the ligaments, the knee that the the ankle as time goes on. However, if you do single leg work, single leg, step up, single leg squats, things like that, the ankle that was weak can’t be weak anymore is the only ankle you have working. So it has to get stronger. We have to work on it. It has to let us know what’s wrong so that we can get therapy on it, so we can get the ankle fixed. Same thing with that weak left knee. Everything is stronger, Everything gets better.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:00] Plus, because your body has now function with just one leg, so the balance has obviously been decreased by 50%. Your body has to increase balance coordination functionality, core strengthening core stability because everything has to go through that one leg. You’ve got to be able to stand on one leg and move around on one leg. So yeah, it’s a big, big deal. Single leg squats will help a lot of different things.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:23] We have all of our pro athletes do a lot of these we have our gymnasts, we have our high end athletes, all of them doing single leg work so that we can balance and structure everything. Here’s the other piece about the lower core, lower, lower cross people don’t talk about.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:40] If you bend over and touch your toes, your right hamstring is tighter than your left, you 100% have back and core function problems because as the thing about this, as the right hamstring is pulling tighter, it’s rocking that side of the hip backwards. So it’s obviously destabilized because if one is sitting neutral, the other one’s pitch back five degrees. It’s not a solid level surface. So you’re not going to get that force to come, that force factor to come off properly. So we need to loosen that hamstring.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:13] Again that goes back to working each leg individually, all the joints together, making sure you know, on that one leg, making sure that that kinetic motion goes. Toes, ankle, knee, hip, low back that it moves the way it’s supposed to, the functions the way it’s supposed to so that we have a functional movement. So that’s that’s the reason that I like people to do single leg squats instead of over the bar.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:39] Plus all that. If you don’t do the bar, you do single leg you can hold a 20 £30 dumbbell, go slow and just burn up your legs. Like when we have our our professional athletes do them. When they first come in, we’re like, we’re just doing single leg squats today with no weight. People go, Oh, easy like 30 minutes later into it, they’re crying, their knees are y wiggling left and right, and they’re like, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. And these are pro athletes.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:04] So a lot of you guys are going to have to like, do some stuff for balance you’re going to hold stuff as you do this. But it’s trust me, it’s the best way to go is to do single leg squats and function through there. So and I’ll do some videos on how to do that here before too terribly long.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:20] Now kettlebell swings okay. 50% of the kettlebell swing I love think is awesome and I think we should do more of 50%. I think we should never, ever do or never ever come close to doing ever again.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:32] The 50% that’s bad is bad enough and I think we should never do kettlebell swings. So grabbing the weight and coming up with it. Love it. Awesome that hip hop that’s phenomenal it’s a great explosive exercise.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:43] Now, if you let go of the kettlebell swing at its apex and just let it fly, it’s a fantastic exercise do more of it go outside and throw those hammer, throw those things, fling them all over the place knock yourself out we’re going to a great time going to get stronger.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:58] The issue comes when we try to catch it as it comes down 90% of the time, you catch it in a manner that puts all that force, that snapping innocent force in the L4, L5, L5 S1 disk and it’s going to damage the disk. I have sent more people to surgery from kettlebell swings than I have from car wrecks. So that’s why I don’t like it.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:20] Now, if you’re like a hammer to go outside in the grass, I’m going to throw my £20 kettlebell swing. Okay. You’re not going to swing it anymore you’re shuffling it you’re going to throw it walk up to it throw it again. Dude, do that. Actually, that’s fantastic exercise. But any time we start catching it, it’s bad.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:37] So even the exercise where you toss a medicine ball up in the air, then you catch it when you catch it. See where that force goes? If that force is going into your low back. Don’t do that exercise anymore. Or drop the weight. You’re supposed to catch that with your hips and drop your hips straight down, not move your back at all.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:55] The problem with kettlebell swings is that you can’t really do a swing without letting that force go to that L5 S1 vertebra and the vast majority of people, when they get tired, they start losing their form and everything goes right there as well so that’s why I say you should never do those.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:13] So those are your three that are really, really bad. I think you can remove all bar work, you know, from exercise, you know, even by eating curls with bars and stuff like that use dumbbells, you individual handed dumbbells.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:28] Like I don’t have any bars I will never have any bars in my personal gym either when I work out in. I’ve just got cables and dumbbells, so. Think about those exercises you know, if you’re at a point where you don’t need to show off with your bench press anymore, I would take them out, take out the squat, and start doing single leg work.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:48] I think you’re going to find that it’s hard. It’s I think you find that if you miss the heart, you’ll find it there and as far as functionality goes, I think you guys are going to find it pretty awesome as well. And I’ll tell you one more thing. You know, when I was in high school and I didn’t know any better, I was doing squat as well, heavy squat. I was, you know, my max squat every day was £600. My ankles were jacked and high school in college and for quite a while and they always hurt walking up and down stairs. Some days that hurt a lot worse than others. But I could always feel it.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:21] When I started about three or four months into doing single leg squats by the time I got good at it and everything else like that. I was walking up the stairs chasing my kids and I realized my ankles don’t hurt anymore.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:32] So I fixed my ankles doing single leg squats and I will tell you from someone who’s lifted real heavyweight for a long time with my legs, the single leg squats, my bodyweight or a £20 dumbbell is substantially harder than a lot of the squats I’ve done with heavy weight.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:48] So. Try it out. I think that you guys will if you do it right. I think you guys have kind of found that it’s just as good of a workout, if not better.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:55] So so those are the three workouts that I always tell people to avoid if we’re worried about long-term functionality. Unfortunately, some of you high school kids can’t because your coaches are going to tell you what to do and if you don’t do it, you’re in trouble.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:07] But if you want a good cross-training thing, do some of these other exercises as well.

Dr Matt Chalmers So if you guys have any questions [email protected] and we’ll get them answered and hopefully we can all get better together. Thanks.

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